Fewer personnel cuts to be proposed, new Air Force secretary says

The number of airmen facing the ax, previously estimated at 25,000 over five years, 'won't be quite as high,' Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Wednesday.(Photo: Cliff Owen/The Associated Press)

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The announcement is small consolation for airmen worried about losing their jobs to budget cuts, but better news for Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve personnel: the Air Force will cut fewer than 25,000 airmen this year, and most will come out of the active-duty side.

That's what new Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Wednesday at a Bloomberg News event in Washington, D.C., according to Air Force Times. The service's top officer, Gen. Mark Welsh, had warned for months that the Air Force would have to cut 25,000 jobs over the next five years in order to meet mandatory federal spending cuts over the next eight years. In mid-February, Air Force Times obtained internal documents that said the service would take those cuts this year alone via a host of voluntary and involuntary programs.

James, however, said the total number "won't be quite as high." But she also said the most of the cuts will come from the active-duty side as the service begins relying more on the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.

Although James didn't announce a top line, her remarks are a hint at the numbers the Air Force will unveil next Tuesday, along with the rest of the service branches, when the president's fiscal year 2015 budget request is announced.

Her remarks fall in line with January's report of the independent National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force, which called for a "greater reliance on the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve." Such a move would help "lower overall military personnel costs, and they will produce a more ready and capable force by preserving funds for operations, maintenance, procurement, and recapitalization," the commission said.

The final decisions, of course, rest with Congress and need the president's signature to become law - both of them a long ways off.